By Amanda Little

Published at 05:15, Friday, 31 October 2008

CUMBRIAN golfer Gary Lockerbie will relaunch his European Tour career with a new club and a new caddie.

Ace of clubs: Tour professional Gary Lockerbie presents a replica Claret Jug trophy to ten-year-old Mathew Lowes, overall winner of The Little Chippers Challenge, held at Penrith Golf Centre. Sponsor Phil Gilford, owner of The Little Chippy in Penrith, is pictured front right. Back: Cumbria coaches Paul Jenkinson and Andrew Pickering, with the other competitors

The 25-year-old will represent Wynyard Golf Club on Europe’s top tour after being offered the chance to play and practice at the exclusive Teesside course.

Seve Ballesteros, Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington and Justin Rose have all won at Wynyard, where European Tour player Graeme Storm and Challenge Tour professional Simon Robinson are also attached.

Lockerbie is an honorary life member of his home-town club Penrith, which he represented as an amateur after becoming a member when he was 14 and being attached to the club when he won the British Boys Championship and the 2003 English Amateur Championship.

But is now a rare visitor to the club, preferring to practice instead at Penrith Driving Range, where his coach Paul Jenkinson is one of the pros.

Lockerbie said: “The main benefit of being attached to Wynyard is that I’ll have the chance to play a couple of very good players rather than practise on my own, and that will help me no end.

“It’s a good testing golf course and is set up like a European Tour course. Golf is getting much longer these days and Wynyard is a long golf course.”

Lockerbie, who won back his full European Tour card after finishing second on this year’s Challenge Tour order of merit, winning £109,470, has also appointed a new caddie for his return to the top tour.

Dermot Byrne, who was Peter Lawrie’s bagman when the Irishman won this summer’s Spanish Open, will join Lockerbie in time for forthcoming tournaments in Hong Kong and South Africa.

Byrne is the brother of Ian Woosnam’s former caddie Mile Byrne, famed for the blunder which cost the Welshman a chance of winning The Open in 2001 when packed 15 clubs and not the permitted 14, leading to a two-stroke penalty.

Lockerbie hasn’t been able to afford a full-time caddie this year while he’s been playing on the European Tour and his former bagman, Cumbrian Ross Parker, is now the PGA’S assistant tournament director at The Belfry.

The former county player is desperate to get off to a good start to the new European Tour season when he tees off in the UBS Hong Kong Open on November 20, before the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa two weeks later.

He said: “I would be good to make a good start to get a good confidence boost. But short of a very good finish I won’t make that much money at the start of the season because the tournaments are small.

“Once you get into April, it’s what the caddies call the silly season because you can make an extortionate amount of money.

“I’m looking forward to playing with the big boys again, and I know I need to make at least 240,000 Euros to keep my card. I’m a better player going into the main tour this year than I was two years ago, and I’ve more experience.”

Lockerbie presented the prizes this week at Penrith Driving Range’s Little Chippers Challenge Cup

Mathew Lowes, 10, won the replica Claret Jug trophy and the title of Little Chippers Champion 2008 by completing nine holes in his exact allocation of 45 shots.

RESULTS

Under-6: Louis Jenkinson. Under-8: Henry Marshall

Under-10: Tom Lane. Under-12 Duncan Butcher

Under-14: James Miles. Best Girl:Alex Duckitt

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk